This Ain't a Bar
by maybemalapert
Summary: —and I can't offer you a drink, but we do have some ice. Or: Tony and Loki are trapped in a cave during a snowstorm; and Thor is to blame.


"Tony Stark, I would speak with you."

Thor's face is set in a frown, his large shoulders slumping. Tony opens the door to the lab wider and gestures him inside before striding back to his workbench and the glove of the Iron Man armour. Thor follows him, treading softly in Tony's wake.

"What did you break?"

"Break?" Thor stares at him, confusion written all over his face. It's an expression Tony is so familiar with that it barely even registers. People are often confused when he's talking to them.

"Yeah, that's the kind of expression school boys wear when being called into the principal's office after breaking a window or two." Tony would know. Admittedly, the reason he'd broken the glass panes had very little to do with an ill-aimed baseball and more with a well-aimed one.

"I did not break anything, Tony Stark," Thor replies and continues in what for Thor is _under his breath_, "And I will try not to do so in here."

"Bah." Tony snorts. "Do you have any idea how much high tech equipment I've already ruined and replaced?" To prove his point he gestures at a pile of debris consisting mostly of a Starkphone, some wires and a toaster liberally covered in foam. The toaster was actually Dummy's victim.

Thor clenches his jaw, but then his lips twitch and he grins. "Certainly not more than you could afford."

"Exactly."

It's weird. Thor isn't usually concerned about breaking things. He tries not to and tends to look a little sheepish when he misjudges his strength and the frailty of human made coffee mugs or pens, but he's never actually worried.

Nor does he generally let on when he feels out of place. Realizing that Thor is apparently waiting for an invitation, Tony points to a rolling chair and waits for Thor to sit, before speaking again.

"So," Tony says, picking up a screwdriver and setting to work again. "What's up?" He expects Thor to answer literally. Not because Thor doesn't know the expression or couldn't figure out the meaning from context. Tony is sure he does and can; but Tony has also already caught the god pretending to be confused a few times, especially when tensions were running high, and right now he could cut the air with a knife.

"I have a boon to ask of you, Man of Iron."

Not so, this time. Tony hums and turns the glove over.

"I'm aware that it is a lot to ask, and I would not hold it against you were you to turn me down." Thor stands up again, and the chair creaks in relief. He takes a few strides forward before turning to face Tony again, and then releases an audible puff of breath.

"I have concerns. Fears. I would ask that you let me unburden my heart to you."

Tony nods, keeping his eyes glued on his work.

"It's about my brother."

Of course it is. It also explains why Thor is here with Tony and not talking to, say, Steve. Tony has no doubt that anyone — Clint excluded — would lend an ear, but as far as Thor (and Tony) are aware, Tony is the only one who's shown behaviour towards Loki that could vaguely be construed as...hospitable. For whatever one Whiskey on the Rocks is worth in terms of hospitality when you were crawling out of a hole in the floor.

Tony makes a vague motion with his left hand, urging Thor to go on. Thor shifts, hands twitching as if he were reaching for his hammer, and says, "I believe he is in trouble."

Tony puts down the glove and looks up. Pauses. Slowly, he says, "I thought Loki was in an Asgard prison."

Thor's shake of the head comes as no surprise with the previous build-up. Still, Tony swears inwardly. "Our father has, in his wisdom, decided to give him a chance to prove that he is not entirely lost to us." The thunder god grimaces. Tony can guess why from what little Thor has told them about his family and what Tony could observe about Loki. If Odin actually put it like that, Loki's reaction must have been explosive.

"I'm surprised he agreed to that." Whatever 'it' was.

"I'm not, Tony Stark. My brother loves his freedom, to come and go as he pleases, unbound by anyone's word. If given the choice between atoning in chains fixed to a wall or on a long leash, his choice is clear."

"But," Tony asks, just to be on the safe side, "there is a leash? I mean, you didn't just let him run wild?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Oh god. He needs a drink, desperately. Tony reaches for the bottle of single malt, hidden underneath his work bench before looking around for a glass or two. He knows he has some. Somewhere. His reaction is probably not the most reassuring to Thor, but it is reassuring to Tony.

Thor's face falls and he starts to rise from his chair. "My apologies. I shouldn't have come here."

"Stop. Sit back down." Ah, over there. Tony retrieves the glasses, checking to see they're clean — sorta...doesn't look like he put anything in there that wasn't supposed to go into a glass — and pours one for Thor and one for himself.

Thor takes the glass and cautiously sits back down. His expression practically redefines 'unhappy'.

"Okay," Tony says, "so your brother has been given a shot at rehabilitation. That's awesome." He considers smiling at Thor, but it would probably look faker than a fake Starkphone made in Taiwan, so he settles for meeting Thor's eyes and looking entirely serious for once.

It seems to be the right choice.

"It is indeed," Thor replies, inclining his head. "There are conditions however. One of them is that I do not interfere."

Tony raises an eyebrow and Thor presses his lips together.

"It is not interference when I speak of my fears to a comrade."

"It is if you ask them to help."

"But I did not," Thor counters. "I merely asked to unburden my heart."

Tony opens his mouth, then closes it. "I see the devious streak runs in the family," he says after a moment.

"I do not know of what you speak."

Tony almost guffaws but keeps himself in check. "Okay, fine." He takes a deep breath himself now, knowing he will come to regret this. "Tell me of these fears of yours."

* * *

Tony rarely — if ever — does what is expected of him. It's a trait that will in time bring premature gray to Pepper's beautiful red hair, but even that thought cannot stop Tony from throwing a curveball whenever he can. Now Thor's plea for help - however worded - put Tony in a curious position because neither he, nor Thor for that matter, knew what Thor expected Tony to do. Hoped for, yeah. That was clear. Feared — no doubt about the answer to that either.

There was a lot of doubt, however, about which way Tony would fall when the answer was obvious to everyone but Tony Stark. Which, actually, made Tony's answer obvious, too.

Of course, he was going to help the mass murdering psychopath.

* * *

The Bifrost spits him out into a world of semi-darkness and sub-polar temperatures. It's a good thing he invested in top-notch insulation for the suit. Tony runs a scan on his surroundings, but aside from himself there's no sign of life for miles around. If Thor hadn't assured him that this is where Loki touched down two weeks previous, Tony wouldn't believe anyone had been here for millennia — or ever, for that matter. As such, he isn't entirely sure that this Heimdal guy isn't messing with him. He hasn't actually met the guy. Thor had gone to Asgard to ask permission to use the Einstein-Rosen Bridge on Tony's account; an act that bordered on the edge of 'interference' without quite going over the line apparently because Thor was only playing Tony's messenger. After he'd come back, he told Tony to _shout at the sky_ once he had finished his preparations — most of which consisted of making sure Pepper knew where he was going (Jötunheimr) and informing her of the approximate length of time that he'd be gone — no idea, but probably not longer than three days. He hoped. It would all depend on how long he'd need to find Loki.

Tony reaches behind himself to check that the reinforced backpack is still firmly attached to the back of his suit before taking to the air. He's flying low; flying at all is a bad idea because he's leaving a blazing trail of light and heat, but he can't cover much ground otherwise and Loki could be anywhere between here and Creepy Mystical Place of Magic. Thor had mentioned the name. Tony finds it unlikely that remembering it would help. He doubts the natives will give him directions.

Tony flies for almost two days straight - break for food notwithstanding - before giving in and heading for a place to rest. By the extremely old and crinkly map Thor had helpfully forgotten to put away from the breakfast table, he knows there is a system of underground caves not far from here. Incidentally, it's also a good place to look for Loki — and also a bad place to look for anyone because if Tony doesn't find the god of mischief here, he's sure to come across _someone_. There is no such thing as a conveniently safe system of caves, whether underground or in the mountains, because someone's bound to have had the idea before you. Tony did consider flying on and maybe checking on the way back if he hasn't found Loki by then, but there is a storm brewing, he can tell, because the darkness is even darker and the wind's been picking up.

Tony wonders when it became his life to look for motherfucking Loki in a motherfucking cave.

He lands near a slight rise, then stomps around a little, trying to find an entrance. He doesn't find the entrance because it finds him first. One second he's taking another step through the deep snow, the next he's in free fall, hitting the ground hard before he can even think to engage the thrusters in his boots. The impact has his teeth clicking together and it's only sheer luck that he doesn't bite his tongue off. Tony's jaw aches. His spine aches. He feels like he's gone three rounds with the Hulk in a bad mood. And on top of that, there's a strange grunting, snuffling sound coming from behind him.

"Crap."

As if waiting for his acknowledgement, the snuffling turns into a trumpeting roar. Tony flings himself to the side, barely managing to avoid getting trampled by Big, Dark and Furry. He scrambles to his feet, watching the thing turn in the light of his arc reactor. It has tusks like a wild boar and the glowing red eyes of a demon from hell. Not that Tony believes in hell. In any case, there's nothing there that could be reasoned with, so Tony takes aim and shoots just as the thing begins another charge. It roars and shakes itself but keeps coming. Tony shoots up, hitting his helmeted head but avoiding being hit by Mr. Pig. A piece of rock drops down from where he collided with the ceiling. Ah, well.

He flies down, aims at the ceiling this time even as Mr. Pig rushes him again. Tony shoots and rolls out of the way almost at the same time. There's a shower of rocks, some small, some decidedly less so, and Mr. Pig's roar turns into a screech of pain as he's buried under a few tons of rock.

Tony waits for the dust to settle a bit before approaching the impromptu cave-in. He hopes he didn't just bar the way to Loki.

* * *

He rests first, for a few hours, before setting off down the only way still open to him. He scans for life signs, but gives up fairly quickly. There's no getting through the heavy rock. He's only been wandering for a few hours - marking the walls every 500 yards or so — before he comes across another of the pig-like beasts. This one is dead, half of its entrails spilling out onto the floor. Tony bends down to examine it, but he can tell nothing from the wound. It's not his area of expertise and the one person who could tell him what killed the thing cannot actually interfere. In the end he keeps walking down the path, hoping he won't run into whatever killed Mr. Pig II.

Or alternatively, he thinks as he rounds a corner and stops, actually hoping to run into _who_ killed the animal. "So, what's a god like you doing in a place like this?"

Loki snarls at him, but doesn't move to stand up. Couldn't really, Tony judges as he eyes the ... bear trap and its hold on Loki's leg. There's an opening almost directly above Loki, letting in a little of the perpetual twilight outside. The god looks a fright. His skin is sallow and shiny with sweat, eyes dark rimmed and hair oily and hanging into his face. There's a fine sheet of snow covering his shoulders and more is falling down through the hole above.

But if Loki is looking bad, his surroundings look like the floor of a slaughter house. There are several of the pig-like animals, gutted and beheaded, a few other beasts Tony can't identify and—

"Okay, so how long have you been stuck here?"

"What is it to you, Stark?"

Tony grins at him behind the mask. "Nothing, I guess. Just making conversation. Weather's a bit frosty, isn't it?"

"Do not mock me, mortal."

Tony raises his hands, placatingly. He briefly thinks over what to say next. 'I've come to help,' is out of the question. That wouldn't go over well, and neither would, 'Your brother sent me,' even though it must be obvious to Loki. "Not mocking. Did you get your magical thingamabob?"

"My what?" Loki's tone is incredulous, like he can't believe his own ears.

"That thing you came here for? Whatever it was. I just want to know if we can leave this hell hole soon or if you still need to ...shop for parts or whatever it is you are doing." Parts for what, Tony has no idea. Fuck, he doesn't even know if that is what Loki is doing. Thor had been surprisingly tight-lipped about that.

Loki eyes him, brows furrowed. "I have what I came for," he says finally.

"Good. So let's get you out of this bear trap and...," he trails off, sighing.

"Wait out the storm? Yes. Let's."

Loki's tone invites an argument, which is kind of understandable to Tony, who also doesn't really look forward to spending any more time with Loki than he has to, and would rather snap at the god then hoist up the white flag and agree to a ceasefire. But Loki's face is twisted in a grimace of pain and exhaustion. Tony takes pity on him - or, well, decides that he'd rather not have his guts turned inside out once he's freed Loki from his predicament. He looks at the bear trap thoughtfully. "Why haven't you magicked yourself out, yet?"

He takes a step forward and kneels down. The thing looks perfectly ordinary. Nothing about it that could explain why Loki didn't just snap his fingers and made it go away.

"Is it...cursed?"

Loki stares at him for a moment in what can only be described in incredulity. Hell, Tony feels incredulous and frankly ridiculous asking about magic and curses, but if Asgardians wanted to describe their science in that way, he'd play along. Getting into an argument about semantics really wasn't worth it.

"Cursed," Loki echoes before laughter bubbles up his throat. "No, Stark. It isn't cursed."

Tony scowls at him, then removes the face mask, so Loki can actually see his expression. Loki starts laughing harder.

Tony waits him out.

After a while, Loki stills and his face goes back to that expression of pain. No anger, however. "It is my 'thingamabob'," he says in an altogether too neutral voice. Tony can practically taste the scorn. "It prevents the use of magic in its vicinity."

"Right," Tony replies calmly, then grabs the two halves of the trap and pulls them apart. It's harder than it looks, which makes sense seeing as how Asgardians are pretty strong — when you go by what Thor could lift — and Loki hadn't managed to pry it apart by himself.

Loki is cursing up a storm. His hands shoot towards Tony's and then they're jointly pushing the trap apart. There's a blip in Tony's ear and a tinny voice announces that the Suit cannot take much more of that strain.

"Can you hold it for ten seconds?"

Tony nods without thinking. Did Loki hear the computer generated voice — not Jarvis's; there wasn't enough space for him in the Suit's memory — or was it coincidence? He should have put Thor through some tests. Hell, someone should have put Thor through some tests. This is something they needed to know in case there was another mad god on the loose.

Tony's thoughts screech to a halt as Loki's hands vanish from his own and he has to scramble to put his knee on one half of the trap because he seriously cannot hold that thing open by himself, _fuck!_

Loki is pulling his leg away and rolls to the side just as something starts flashing red in Tony's periphery and he throws himself backward. It's only when the trap has snapped shut again, barely missing burying its teeth in the suit, that Tony has a moment to wonder where the fucking mechanism was that made sure the thing stayed open for someone or something to step into it.

Correction. He was wondering why neither he nor Loki had _thought to check_.

"I'm an idiot," Tony mutters.

"Do you want me to reply to that?" Loki asks, voice tight.

"Only if you want me to tell you that you're also an idiot," Tony counters, and Loki splutters at him about what made Tony in particular so terribly stupid. He interrupts himself a few times and even loses sight of how he was going to finish the sentence once. It's a clear sign of how much pain the god must be in, because Loki doesn't seem the type to be lost for words while insulting someone.

Tony frees the backpack and pulls it around to look for the medkit. He's not a doctor — well, not that kind of doctor — but he's pretty sure he can manage to bandage someone's leg. There are also a couple of aspirin inside and he contemplates those for a moment, trying to figure out how much aspirin a god would need before banishing that thought. Loki might take a drink from him, but it is exceedingly unlikely that he'd take something that looked less like nourishment or drink and more like poison.

"Stark—"

"Hold still." Loki opens his mouth to reply, but Tony interrupts him before he can get a word in edgewise. "I am not going to be carrying you around. Either you manage to walk on your own or you're crawling." Needless to say that walking on a bandaged leg might be easier. Maybe. He'll probably have to stabilize it because the bone is probably broken. Dammit, he really is no doctor.

Loki is strangely silent in reply. When Tony looks at him again after casting about for a stick that could serve as a splint, Loki's expression is one of acknowledgement.

Speaking of transportation; Tony bites the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning and voicing his thoughts for a second time in as many minutes. He really is an idiot, and really, so is Loki.

"How exactly did you plan to leave this planet?" He finally spots something that could work and stands up to retrieve it.

"How did you arrive here?"

"The Einstein—," Tony pauses as he sits back down in front of Loki. They've moved away from the hole just enough that Loki is no longer getting snowed on. "The Bifrost." He is not going to call it a _rainbow_ bridge.

"There's your answer then." Loki is leaning forward, knife in hand and cutting away the leg of his pants. Tony meanwhile is turning a giant bone over in his hands. It's picked clean sure, but it's far from what one could call sterile.

Loki plucks it out of his hands and proceeds to hold it against his leg before throwing it away. "Too short," he announces, before muttering, "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?" Tony isn't sure that was actually meant as a question. He chooses to ignore it in any case and gets up to look for something else.

"Isn't that magic, too?" He makes air quotes around magic. The sign totally flies over Loki's head, he's sure, but Loki notices the sarcasm anyway, going by the twitching of his jaw.

"The starting point of the bridge is nowhere near the — my vicinity," he finally replies, speaking slowly and over-emphasizing every word as if Tony were slow or a child or possibly both.

Asshole.

"So why haven't you called to be picked up then?" Tony asks faux-innocently.

"I have my reasons."

Tony thinks this over briefly. Thor had mentioned...something. About Heimdall and Loki. He's sure of it even if he can't quite remember what it was. "That Heimdall guy ignored you, didn't he?"

Loki glowers at him, but then wipes his expression clean. His mouth forms a smug little smile. "He did not. I realize that you are limited in your capacity to understand such matters, so you will just have to be content with knowing that I need to end this journey where I have begun it."

"Right," Tony drawls, stretching the 'i' because he, too, can be an asshole.

There is absolutely nothing that could work to stabilize Loki's leg, Tony finally decides. He makes a "wait here" motion with his hand — like Loki is going to do anything else — and rises up through the hole and outside. After about twenty minutes, he gives it up as a lost cause. There isn't anything to be found outside either and if he stays outside any longer he's going to be blown away by the storm.

Inside, Loki seems to have dragged himself further from the opening in the ceiling. He also seems to have found the flashlight Tony had stowed in his backpack. And the food and water.

"Help yourself," Tony says magnanimously as he drops down about two yards from him and lifts his faceplate.

"I believe I just did."

"So," Tony says after a while during which Loki keeps eating and drinking. "You ever been carried piggyback?"

"I thought you were not going to carry me."

"It'll take ages to get to your magical departing place that way. Unless there's some mystical, mortal brains-breaking reason why you have to crawl there by yourself."

"No, I'm permitted to make use of pack animals."

Tony wants to ask him if he has to try to be an insulting ass or if it comes naturally, but it sounds so much like something that several people have asked _Tony_ that he actually has to laugh. There are few people who put up with Tony's shit for any length of time — he can count them on one hand, and then he still has fingers left. Tony really has no stones to throw.

"Lame. Totally lame," he says instead. "Though considering the state of your leg, that's not really surprising."

"You're not as witty as you seem to think, Stark."

"You just don't know what to say in reply." He doesn't let Loki try either because knowing himself and knowing Loki — not that he knows him well — they could probably do this for hours. Or until someone got thrown out of a window. "Average length of snowstorm here?"

Loki pauses long enough to let the silence indicate that he is not only aware of Tony's agenda here, but could also totally beat Tony in the banter and snark department, which, yeah, not happening. "Any length of time between a few hours and several weeks."

_Tony's_ pause quite elegantly expresses the sentiment of 'well, fuck', but he decides to voice it as well just in case it wasn't clear.

Loki snorts.

They sit quietly for a while before Tony's stomach begins to growl. He removes his gloves and gropes for his backpack, pulling it closer and burying his hand and most of his arm inside. There's not a lot left. Tony grits his teeth and reminds himself that Loki probably hasn't eaten for a while. It doesn't really help. "If you throw up, I will strangle you."

"You may try," Loki replies, closing his eyes and relaxing his shoulders.

"No, seriously. Has no one ever taught you that you make yourself sick if you went without food for a while and then eat three days worth of rations?"

"I'm a god, Stark. I don't get sick." He pauses and opens his eyes again. "You're awfully violent and cruel for a hero."

Tony is no hero, but he isn't going to tell Loki that. "You're awfully manacles-free for a prisoner."

Tony expected a scowl and for Loki to start ranting about Odin, maybe. Curse Thor. Swear bloody vengeance.

"If you think I should be locked up, why are you here, Stark? Surely Thor has told you that my freedom will be forfeit if I fail."

He can't exactly say that Thor asked him to, even though it's obvious to everyone, including Loki, and that isn't actually the question that Loki is asking. Nor is it the truth; not that Tony is concerned about lying to the god of lies.

"Because I hate meeting expectations."

"Far better to act contrary to all of them," Loki murmurs, head tilted downward. He sounds amused.

Tony shrugs. "Or exceed them."

Loki laughs.

* * *

It doesn't take weeks; it doesn't even take days. When Tony wakes from a fitful sleep — he's been startling awake at every little noise, every small motion because, despite what other people may think, he wasn't actually suicidal and insane and couldn't possibly sleep well in the presence of a supervillain, in a _cave_, in arctic conditions — it has stopped snowing.

Loki is awake and watching him. Tony doesn't know if he simply woke before Tony did or if the god was awake the whole time. Either way, the way he's staring at Tony is unnerving, even though he couldn't actually have seen much. Tony had put on his gloves again and closed the faceplate before going to sleep. Loki has enough strength to rip the armour from him if he's determined, but this way Tony would at least have had some warning.

"What?" He rasps as he reaches for the backpack. His mouth tastes like terry cloth.

Loki smirks and says nothing. Tony decides to ignore him. Mind games, probably. God of mischief, and all that.

Breakfast consists of the last of the rations. Tony even shares, because he's not that much of a dick, and Loki fainting in midair and falling and breaking yet another leg would slow down Tony's escape from the frozen hell of Jötunheimr. That's why he's going to be carrying the god the whole way back to the take-off point, too.

So, of course, Loki is going to balk.

"We already talked about this. You even tried to insult me over it," Tony growls.

"I'm not going to be carried like a child all the way across the icy plains. You may lift me out of these tunnels, but I can travel under my own power."

"Look," Tony says, "we're out of food. We're almost out of clean water; I'm not going to eat snow. I doubt the inhabitants of this place are happy that you stole your magic artifact from them — no," he holds up a hand, "Don't tell me you didn't steal it. I'm not dumb. And lastly, we both don't enjoy each other's company enough to hang out longer than absolutely necessary."

Loki's jaw twitches and he averts his gaze to look past Tony and up towards the opening. "Fine," he says finally.

Tony reaches out a hand to help him up.

* * *

"I'm much relieved, my friend."

Tony tries not to wince as Thor all but crushes his ribs. The Einstein-Rosen Bridge had picked up Loki first, presumably transporting him back to Asgard, before the light descended again and delivered Tony to the roof of Stark Tower. Tony had only just removed the armour when Thor found him in the suite and asked about Loki.

"Hey, no problem," Tony wheezes, staggering as Thor puts him back onto the floor. He clamps a hand on Thor's shoulder, squeezing, before heading towards the other end of the room and putting his minibar between himself and the god.

"Did he say?" Thor asks. "Did it go well for him?"

"Looks like," Tony answers, squinting at the bottle of whiskey. His stomach is empty and Pepper is bound to come by as soon as she hears he's back. Sighing, he puts the bottle back down.

"JARVIS."

"Sir?"

"Pizza. Pepperoni and cheese. Throw some money at them to make it go faster. Thor, you want anything?"

"Indeed," Thor booms. "This is a cause for celebration. My brother has completed the first step to return to us." He looks hopefully towards Tony. "A toast?"

"Sure," Tony says after a second's hesitation. He reaches for the bottle he just put down and pours for them both.

"To my brother," Thor says and raises his glass. "To freedom."

"Yes," Tony says slowly, raising his own glass. Thor beams at him.


End file.
